FounderX Silicon Valley 2026
Palo Alto & San Francisco, CA | Aug 25-27, 2026
FounderX is the global gathering of FI and Decile Group Alumni, Mentors, Local Leaders, and Partners, and for the first time since 2023 the event will convene in the Founder Institute’s home location: Silicon Valley.
This highly-curated event will gather 300+ founders, technology executives, and startup ecosystem leaders from across the globe for three days of networking events, group workshops, and engaging talks from top Keynote Speakers.
The goal of FounderX is to facilitate meaningful connections and learning between members of the FI and Decile Group Networks, which span 100+ countries across 6 continents.
FounderX is reserved for FI and Decile Group Local Leaders, Alumni, Mentors, Investors, and Partners.
If you are a member of the FI Network, check your email or login to your dashboard to find your discount code.
Agenda Overview
FounderX is an ‘unconference’ that combines traditional conference elements with a fun, informal, and intimate environment.
For those tight on time, please note that the main conference day is Wednesday, Aug 26. The event begins on Tuesday, Aug 25 with a welcoming dinner and networking event, and Thursday, Aug 27 will feature special access to a partner conference in San Francisco.
We are hard at work putting together an amazing agenda now, and all details will be updated below as they are confirmed.
Day One Agenda: Tuesday, Aug 25
FounderX starts with a welcoming party, setting the stage for collaboration and connection.
5:00PM – 9:00PM
WelcomING RECEPTION & LIGHT DINNER
Location TBA.
Day Two Agenda: Wednesday, Aug 26
9:30AM - 10:00PM @ Location TBD
The main un-conference day takes place on Day 2, with a variety of speakers, workshops, and intimate networking opportunities.
9:30AM – 10:00AM:
Light Networking Breakfast
10:00AM – 10:15AM:
WELCOMING Session
10:15AM – 11:00AM:
Keynote SPeaker 1
11:00AM – 12:15PM:
Workshops & Group Discussions 1
12:15PM - 1:30PM:
Lunch Reception
1:30PM – 2:15PM:
Keynote SPeaker 2
2:15PM – 3:15PM:
Workshops & Group Discussions 2
3:15PM – 4:15PM:
Workshops & Group Discussions 3
4:15PM – 5:00PM:
Speed Pitching Session
5PM – 7:00PM:
Happy Hour & Appetizer RECEPTION
9:30PM – ??:
Afterparty
Day Three: Thursday, Aug 27
9:00AM - 10:00PM @ San Francisco Location TBA
Day 3 features special access to a San Francisco startup conference, TBA.
Previous Keynote Speakers
Speakers for FounderX Silicon Valley will be announced in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, below you can see the list of speakers that joined FounderX 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Jason Calacanis
Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur, author, and angel investor in over 250 startups, including 7 "unicorns". He also hosts the popular podcasts 'This Week in Startups' and 'All-In'. Named “arguably the world’s greatest angel investor” by The Twenty Minute VC, Jason was among the early investors in companies such as Uber, Robinhood, Wealthfront, Thumbtack, and Trello.
He is the author of "Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups" (Harper Collins, 2017) and serves as Founder & CEO of LAUNCH (which encompasses the LAUNCH Festival and the LAUNCH Incubator). Additionally, he is the Founder & CEO of Inside.com, among other ventures.
Linda Avey
Linda Avey is a Founding Managing Partner of Humain Ventures, investing in category-defining tech bio companies; and was at the forefront of the digital health movement as a Founder of 23andMe, and as the first independent board director of Rock Health. Her interests span precision health, AI-driven drug development, and the emergence of biology as a programmable operating system for health and longevity.
Linda sits on the board of fellows of Stanford Medical School and is a current or former advisor to health and science companies including Colossal Biosciences (driving de-extinction), Verily (Alphabet’s life science subsidiary), and Ôura (a leading health tracking wearable). She is also a director at the Human Immunome Project and an advisor to London-based Giant Ventures and the Autism Impact Fund.
Julia Cheek
Julia Cheek is the Founder and CEO of Everly Health, a digital health company providing virtual-first disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In just 10 years, Everly Health has served over 50 million people and delivered more than 200 million personalized health insights, giving people crucial information about their health.
Julia is a visionary leader, serving on the Board of Directors for Headspace Health and The University of Texas at Austin President's Innovation Board. She demonstrates her passion for entrepreneurship by supporting underrepresented founders, investing in over a dozen healthcare startups. Julia was named a 2024 Digital Health Icon by Rock Health, 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year by Springboard Enterprises, and Fortune Magazine's 2022 15 Most Powerful Women in Startups.
Allison Ellsworth
Allison Ellsworth is the Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Poppi: the modern soda brand revolutionizing soda for the next generation. She created poppi after discovering the benefits of apple cider vinegar and experimenting in her kitchen to make it taste great. From the farmers market to a Shark Tank deal, poppi quickly became one of the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beverages in the U.S. and is the #1 selling soda on Amazon.
Ellsworth leads the Austin-based beverage company’s overall brand strategy, creative, and innovation. She pioneered the brand’s cultural cache and digital-first approach, attracting a loyal community of over 1M followers, over 2B+ page views on TikTok and celebrity brand fans including Kim Kardashian, Post Malone, Alix Early, Hailey Bieber, Billie Eilish and more. Allison has been recognized in the 2024 Inc. Female Founders 250 and Founder of the Year from Modern Retail. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband and three boys.
Gabe Dominocielo
Gabe Dominocielo is the President and Co-founder of Umbra, a technology company specializing in advanced space systems to both commercial and government clients. Before establishing Umbra in 2015, Dominocielo co-founded and served as Chief Operating Officer of a legal services firm whose panel attorneys achieved over $1 billion in verdicts and settlements.
Under his leadership, Umbra has distinguished itself by offering the highest-resolution commercial satellite images available, utilizing proprietary technology to capture clear imagery through clouds and at night.
Dominocielo is recognized for his pragmatic approach to the space industry, emphasizing sound unit economics and transparent business practices. He advocates for strong partnerships free of channel conflicts and has implemented transparent, self-service scheduling and tasking, permissive licensing, and clear public universal pricing at Umbra.
Lee Shapiro
Lee Shapiro is a Partner at 7wire Ventures, an investment firm he co-founded over a decade ago. He also served as Chief Financial Officer of Livongo Health [NASDAQ:LVGO] until November 2020. Previously he was President of Allscripts [NASDAQ:MDRX] from 2001 until the end of 2012. His leadership was integral in the execution of over $4B in mergers, acquisitions, and financings.
During his tenure as CFO, Livongo also had a successful secondary offering, raised $550M in convertible debt and entered into an agreement to merge at the highest valuation, $18.5B, of any healthcare technology company, based on revenue multiples. The price of $159 per share was over six times the price of Livongo’s shares at the time of its IPO, just 12 months earlier.
Lee serves on the National Board of Directors of the American Heart Association as Chair Elect, assuming his new role in July 2025.
Steve Munisteri is a Senior Advisor to the Governor of the State of Texas, Greg Abbott.
In 2017, Munisteri joined the Trump Administration as White House Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison. Munisteri served as Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas from 2010 to 2015.
Prior to his chairmanship, Munisteri founded his own law firm in 1982 and an oil and gas investment company in 1989. From Houston, Texas, Munisteri received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas.
Cheryl Sew Hoy is the CEO and Founder of Tiny Health, the leading microbiome health platform helping individuals and families optimize their gut and vaginal microbiome. Launched in 2022, Tiny Health pioneered the first at-home gut microbiome test for moms and babies, using shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Since then, it has expanded to serve adults and older children, offering advanced testing for chronic conditions, performance, longevity, and overall health.
A repeat founder and entrepreneur, Cheryl was previously Director at Flexiroam, CMO at Hack Reactor, and Founder & CEO of Reclip.It, acquired by Walmart Labs in 2013. She later served as CEO of MaGIC, a $30M government-backed initiative to grow Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem.
With expertise in brand building, fundraising, and scaling startups, Cheryl has raised $34M across her ventures and advises numerous startups. She holds a master’s in Engineering Management & Data Mining and a bachelor’s in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University, both on full scholarships.
Tiny Health’s team includes leading scientists, physicians, and microbiologists from Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard Medical, and UCSF.
Cara Abbott is the Founder & CEO at Betterleave, the leading experience platform built to support individuals and families as they navigate serious illness, end-of-life & loss.
Cara is also a Partner at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund backed by 500 founders and operators; an Advisor for the Founder Institute; and a member of the Forbes HR Council.
Prior to Betterleave, she co-founded Code Pilot, one of the fastest growing developer training & recruitment platforms for hiring teams. Code Pilot was acquired by AngelList in 2020. Cara loves to partner with founders and leaders to support complex organizational and high-growth people initiatives for successful outcomes -- including WorldFirst, Acquisition and RetailMeNot, IPO.
George Ploss
George Ploss is the Head of Venture Capital Practice and Head of Oracle NetSuite Startup Accelerator, where he takes the resources of Oracle-NetSuite and uses them to accelerate the success of startups in incubators.
He was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign where he received his MBA in finance and strategic leadership along with his bachelor's in African American studies and Political Science. While in undergrad, George enlisted in the Marine Corps, Reserves where he served a total of nine years.
Mercedes Bankston
Mercedes Bankston is the Director of the FI Silicon Valley program and an Advisor to Loyal VC.
She specializes in jump-starting new business units, re-launching failed units, and rolling out new products, primarily in innovative technical companies.
She is also an expert in global investments in high-potential tech startups.
Kamal Hassan
Kamal Hassan is a Managing Partner at Loyal VC, a global venture fund designed to offer above-average returns while preserving capital, through diversification and a unique gate-stage investing process that reduces bias. Loyal is the fund Kamal wished he had available during his 20-year career as an entrepreneurial CEO, and 15 years as an angel investor. It draws upon his professional and philanthropic experiences and networks formed as a Global Director with the Founder Institute accelerator, former INSEAD Alumni Association President, a consultant at Bain & Co, and as an engineer at IMAX.
He has an INSEAD MBA and a degree in engineering physics from Queen's University. He has traveled to over 100 countries and speaks 5 languages.
Rajeev Behera
Rajeev Behera is the Founder & CEO of Every.io, an All-in-One back office platform for technology companies that simplifies entity formation, banking, bookkeeping, corporate cards, reimbursements, taxes, payroll, compliance, R&D tax credits, benefits, and much more. Previously, he was co-founder and CEO of Reflektive, where he raised $100 million from a16z and Lightspeed. He built the organization to 250 employees. Reflektive was ranked the 13th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte in terms of revenue growth.
Martin Tobias
Martin Tobias is the founder of Incisive Ventures, a Pre-Seed Fund based in Seattle. Incisive Ventures invests in technology companies that reduce friction at scale, leveraging the vast network Martin built as an angel investor in over 60 companies in the sector. Among these, 4 stand out as unicorns that have collectively secured $2.5B+ in follow-on financing. Martin's entrepreneurial journey is extensive. He has invested in over 250 companies as an angel, partnered with a major VC firm, and has become a limited partner in over a dozen VC funds. Additionally, he founded the leading Angel network, Element8. With experience from Microsoft, Accenture, and as a three-time venture-backed CEO, Martin has successfully secured over $500M in funding for his companies, marking two of them with successful IPOs.
Andrew Tauhert
Andrew Tauhert is the Chief Impact Officer at XPRIZE, responsible for driving and enabling the foundation’s impact across all of our programs, including program fundraising, strategic partnerships and activating the ecosystem of organizations and individuals who guide and support our work. Lastly, Andrew oversees the “visioneering” process at XPRIZE which convenes experts and thought leaders in their respective domains to chart the future direction of the foundation and focus of its forthcoming prizes.
Andrew came to XPRIZE with over 25 years of experience driving successful results in large enterprises and startups operating throughout high tech, telecom/networking, data and AI. Andrew is the former COO of Prodea Systems, a leader in Internet of Things Solutions, as well as Founder and Managing Director of VaticX Inc., a global accelerator with best practices to optimize value creation for growth stage AI, DLT, IoT, and Edge Computing companies.
Mike Sherbakov serves as General Partner at The Veteran Fund, a pre-seed venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, and Managing Director of the FI San Diego program.
As the CEO of Greatness Ventures, he led the organization to thousands of investor members and hundreds of companies in their portfolio. Their venture philanthropy arm has built homes in underdeveloped communities since 2014 and continues to lead impact trips open for the community to join.
Mike previously founded three startups, helped grow two companies from $0 to over $20M, and consulted with leading brands including Fitbit, lululemon athletica, Equinox, and Qualcomm.
Esosa Ighodaro co-founded Black Women Talk Tech, the largest collective of Black women tech founders, supporting over 150,000 global entrepreneurs. She drives strategy, partnerships, and marketing for the organization, which includes the Roadmap to Billions Conference and AcceleratorCON. She is also an Angel & LP Investor, and a Scout for Zeal Capital Partners. With 15+ years in entrepreneurship and corporate roles, Esosa has been named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women and featured in outlets like Forbes, ELLE, and NBC.
Pat LaPointe
Pat LaPointe is the Chairman at Entrelliance, Managing Director at Frontier Angels, and an entrepreneur who built and sold three companies in the marketing and data analytics field. These days he brings a very entrepreneur-friendly approach to angel and venture investing, and served on the Board of the Angel Capital Association. With a portfolio of over 60 investments and afflicted by endless curiosity, Pat enjoys learning about new business models and innovative technologies and loves helping entrepreneurs find their path to growth and success.
Lyn Graft
Lyn Graft is the Founder of Storytelling for Entrepreneurs, an online platform for founders to help create, tell, and share their story; an author of Start with Story: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Using Story to Grow Your Business. Over the last fifteen years, Lyn has filmed and captured the stories of more than five hundred of the world’s top entrepreneurs, including the founders of LinkedIn, Starbucks, Dell, and Whole Foods. He has produced more than eight hundred videos focused on entrepreneurs, startups, and business content, and dedicated twenty thousand hours to studying and practicing entrepreneurial storytelling. Lyn is an entrepreneur, producer, dog lover, and co-creator of CNBC’s American Made.
Harvin Moore
As a Principal of Frontera Technology Ventures (“FTV”), Harvin Moore has invested in and advised growth-stage technology companies. He has been involved in the Houston and Texas technology innovation movement since the 1990s as a startup entrepreneur, mentor, advisor, investor, and limited partner of one of Houston's leading startup development organizations and co-working hubs.
From 2019 to 2021, Harvin served as President and CEO of Houston Exponential ("HX"), an independent non-profit which works to accelerate the growth of Houston's rapidly expanding technology innovation ecosystem.
Harvin currently serves on several boards including Space Workforce Incubator for Texas (SWIFT), KIPP Houston, TXRX Labs, NASA’s Space Center Houston, and the Powell Foundation.
Sunil Sharma
Sunil is the Managing Partner at Feedback and a founding partner of SuperAdvisors. Over the past decade, he has invested in tech startups, amassing a portfolio of 150+ active investments through various funds, including Techstars. As the Managing Partner of Techstars Toronto, he made 100 direct investments across 16 countries and achieved 8 successful exits. Previously, Sunil was a Managing Partner at Extreme Venture Partners, where he co-founded Extreme Startups—an early equity-based pre-seed accelerator in Canada. Additionally, Sunil supports over 450 portfolio companies launched through the Founder Institute's pre-accelerator program, representing the largest active startup portfolio in Canada.
Sunil also co-hosts the Collision Conference, an annual event attracting over 40,000 attendees to Toronto and part of the global WebSummit series held in cities like Doha, Lisbon, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro.
Rob Kaminski
Rob Kaminski (Co-founder of Fletch) has helped over 400 B2B startups develop their positioning strategies and translate those strategies into clear homepage messaging.
Paul Kwiatkowski
Paul Kwiatkowski is co-founder at GroupRaise, a leading platform for community groups, charities, and other non-profits to fundraise by partnering with a variety of merchants and brands, from restaurants to movie theaters and more. Prior to GroupRaise, he received a degree in Computer Science from Rice University and assisted with product development at several startups as they were going from zero to one.
Paul has a deep empathy for the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in their first stages of growth, and was co-organizer of the Houston Lean Startup Circle for three years. Over the last decade, he has mentored and advised startups through his involvement in multiple accelerators, including the Founder Institute in Houston.
Adeo Ressi
Adeo Ressi is CEO of Decile Group, which runs the leading venture capital accelerator VC Lab and operates the Decile Hub platform. Adeo is also Executive Chairman at the Founder Institute. Adeo has launched 14 VC funds and founded 11 startups, having nearly $2 billion in exits before the age of 30.
He previously served on the Board of the X Prize foundation to pursue his interests in space exploration, and studied architecture and spent time living on a commune to explore his interests in designing better ways to live.
Adeo is passionate about inspiring people to achieve their potential.
Jonathan Greechan is Co-Founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator.
Since 2009, Jonathan has grown and scaled the organization to chapters in over 200 cities and 95 countries, which have produced over 7000 portfolio companies with nearly $2 billion in venture funding.
Previously, Jonathan was a Partner of TheFunded.com; Executive Producer of the Founder Showcase; and Product Manager at RealNetworks (RNWK), a company he joined after its acquisition of Game Trust (a startup that raised $18M+ in venture capital, where he built and led all marketing and content).
Exclusively For the FI and Decile Group Network
FounderX is strictly invite-only, reserved for FI and Decile Group Local Leaders, Alumni, Mentors, Investors, and partners. For support, reach us at support (at) founderx (dot) com.